


ballad of the lady of the lake

by macha



Series: Georgia on My Mind [6]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-07
Updated: 2007-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:45:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macha/pseuds/macha





	ballad of the lady of the lake

###    
_A02.11.01 Age of Home: in the hoard, the deeper well._   


__

and the name of the tale is:

  


### ballad of the lady of the lake

  

    
    
    the Lady's sails were cream and red  
     and her keel didn't touch the lake.  
    and she said _in the end he belongs to me  
     whatever you hope to take._
    
     _but my kingdom lies beneath this lake,  
     and your kingdom's on the shore.  
    i will take his sword, i will take his horse,  
    but i'll take his heart no more._
    
    he is full of fire, the Slayer said,  
    and his heart is made of stone.  
    and he cannot reach that good broadsword  
    where he sits on his pile of bone.
    
     _i have come from the Island of Glass for him  
     to the human worlds of pain.  
    if he is not here i shall take my leave.  
    do not call to me again._
    
    i do not call you to set him free  
    and i have no gifts to give.  
    i have called you out not to death this time  
    but to choose again to live.
    
    the Lady smiled and she shook her head,  
    and she said _i have known it twice.  
     everlasting life is not worth the cost  
    and i will not pay the price._
    
    but the Slayer said, let us sit awhile,  
    and drink to that cost too steep,  
    since whatever we lost we're both sailing yet.  
    memory is all we keep.
    
     _yes, and memory is what we are,  
     but i am no longer whole,  
    and what i give must come back to me.  
    yet my son was born with a soul._
    
    do you have a son? is he living yet?  
    of what father? by what name?  
    you were gifted more than i ever knew  
    and i cannot say the same.
    
     _in the end we are only what we are  
     and i had no love to give.  
    in the morning his soul was still intact,  
    but i wanted the boy to live._
    
     _i have done such things you will never know.  
     i have killed everything i knew.  
    why would you wish to detain me now  
    when you know what i can do?_
    
    when i look in the mirror i know your face,  
    and like me you are alone.  
    we both gave up more than we could spare,  
    so i offer you a home.
    
     _my ship still sails in the afterlife  
     and i cannot disembark._  
    i have been there too, and i know the way.  
    take my hand against the dark.
    
    so did the Lady of Water meet  
    and ally with the Queen of Sky,  
    who kept her promise and called her son,  
    and gave her a reason why.
    
    the ship sailed into the port of Home  
    and the Lady came ashore.  
     _i will give him his father's sword and horse.  
     he will be alone no more._

 _[scholarly notes: like all ballads, which come out of oral traditions and are usually passed on for many years before they are ever written down, this one is difficult to date and impossible to attribute. in the Persythian Library it is numbered 2378v9 of the Ranult collection. this transcription was made in the Scipian Islands on Altar in universal stardate24078 5530Earthyears and is considered early, but another similar variant with more stanzas was collected in Aplo Verva (a system with no known contact with Altar at any point in the past) in us24551 6003Earthyears._

i have shown the Earthyears because it has been suggested (see Bogle20.304.14) that the original story is based on an old Earth legend; but because of the paucity of our records of this culture, it is impossible to verify the assertion. both versions do agree that the Queen of Sky was a Slayer, and among varying conjectures about who she was the most persuasive argument to date is Karnalli's45.445.78, who suggests the Slayer in question was the well-known Slayer named Andromache, who lived on AppianPrime and died heroically ca. 5230E in the famous battle at Derun Gulf. Poppan19.439.13 strongly disagrees, suggesting instead that the Slayer in question might have been one of those who sailed the starseas in the legendary ship Revello Drive, but his researches have been widely discredited.

the identity of the Lady of the Lake to whom the Slayer spoke on this occasion is not known. but it should be noted that for some arcane reason the NewAurelianCult that was so successful in the coup that freed the indigenous races of Marrakesh8 considered her a progenitor, and the successive waves of outmigration that followed their emancipation may explain how widely the ballad has travelled, and why it has survived. the identity of the port of Home cannot be established, since no known record lists that name. Home in one of the languages of Earth meant simply a type of building, but it is hard to see how that datum might be germane.

\- note made by Frokan26.3956.19 and dated 62330 according to Universal Stardate]  



End file.
